CFLs

[tonyp1]

Ok.. I like them because they do not get hot to the touch..

You can leave them on for hours and they are so cool you can grab them with your hand and hold them for as long as you like..


Now I read CFLs get hotter than incandescent bulbs?

How can this be when if you touch a CFL it’s warm to the touch while a incandescent bulb will burn your hand off instantly..


Try turning a incandescent bulb on for a hour then grab with it one hand and see how long you can hold on to it..

Yeah 400 degrees plus..

Anyhow are CFLs safe to leave on 24/7?

I need to leave a few on AT ALL TIMES.. Is this safe?

[Vala]

I personally only use traditional bulbs, I don't use CFL's as I'm worried about mercury contamination in the event one breaks. If I need to touch a light bulb and that's rare I just put a sock over my hand lol.

[tonyp1]

I’m just concerned with a fire risk as this home is left alone for 5 to 7 days at a time. CFLs seem to put off a lot less heat.

[phil]

I've had some burning in a little room under the stairs. for a long time I was using standard bulbs and they do go south from being on. I tried CFL's and yes the bulb seemed cooler but then I checked and the bulb had failed catastrophically. the glass parts were on the floor and the plastic control part that screws into the socket was all burned up so I wouldn't choose them for a place like that where a fire is a concern. the best might be appliance bulbs ( or rough service bulbs) and if it is imperative that it stays on , like in keeping a pumphouse from freezing for example, I would use two or three bulbs so if one goes out there are others. at least regular old light bulbs usually just burn the filament out. LED's are no good for an application where you want the warmth to stop things from freezing. a suitable fixture that contains them might make them safer and this is just whet Ive seen by my experience but for some reason they can malfunction and what I saw was that the sockets can get very hot when this happens.

[nhguy]

I've had some burning in a little room under the stairs. for a long time I was using standard bulbs and they do go south from being on. I tried CFL's and yes the bulb seemed cooler but then I checked and the bulb had failed catastrophically. the glass parts were on the floor and the plastic control part that screws into the socket was all burned up so I wouldn't choose them for a place like that where a fire is a concern. the best might be appliance bulbs ( or rough service bulbs) and if it is imperative that it stays on , like in keeping a pumphouse from freezing for example, I would use two or three bulbs so if one goes out there are others. at least regular old light bulbs usually just burn the filament out. LED's are no good for an application where you want the warmth to stop things from freezing. a suitable fixture that contains them might make them safer and this is just whet Ive seen by my experience but for some reason they can malfunction and what I saw was that the sockets can get very hot when this happens.

I made a heater for my wife's chicken waterer from an old cookie tin and a thermal switch. I use rough service bulbs or a halogen bulb. The halogen is a bulb in a bulb, so little chance of breaking. Both last a month or two at a time.

[phil]

if you look at light bulbs they may have an electrical rating like for example they may be rated at 115 or 130 volts.. the hotter they run the faster they may burn out.

If you hook two bulbs in series, brightness is much less.. and maybe they will last longer that way since the heat and light output would then be divided. Of course if wired in series if one burns out, the other goes off as well.

There is a device called a dim bulb tester that I will use sometimes to check radios or other devices that have been sitting.

To make a dim bulb tester you just take a two wire extension cord and cut one wire and run that through a socket with a bulb. any device plugged into that cord will then get power but at a reduced voltage. the higher the wattage of the bulb, less resistance , the higher the output, so you can adjust the output voltage just by changing bulbs. sometimes I will try to increase the voltage slowly in order to try to spot a failure before I get a dead short, for example in a radio it might have a partly burned out transformer or some resistors that have gone south due to age and it is always nicer to find these issues before they see full line current.


when using it I will expect to see the bulb burn dimly and that will show that the load is being spread and that is ok , but if you plug a device in, say an old radio or some old toaster you found.. then if it is for some reason shorted ( perhaps frayed wires touching that I cant' see) the bulb will burn at full intensity. This is nicer than plugging shorted things in and blowing a circuit breaker.
If you have two 100 w bulbs in series ,and your line voltage is 118 volts , each will see half the voltage or about 60 volts.

optionally you can screw in a screw in fuse rather than a bulb, then you will see full line current but it is at least fused. still better than a dead short. While the circuit breakers in your house will normally trip with an overload condition, it happens that they get old and fail. If they stick and you have plugged in a shorted device then you can overheat the wiring inside your walls and cause a fire. glass fuses , like the screw in ones you may see in a stove are very simple devices and these dont' get stuck like the circuit breakers in your fuse panel can.

so you might consider two bulbs in series and if you want to have full intensity at one socket then just use a fuse in the other. I'm thinking that perhaps it might make it more reliable.
If you burn out your bulb then you loose the eggs you have in there. maybe that's an affordable risk.. if it means your water pump froze and broke because of a stupid light bulb worth a dollar it might be more expensive than the eggs.. so for a pumphouse I'd use at least two bulbs in parallel so if one goes out you dont' loose your waterpump to freezing. because a new pump is expensive and it isn't fun to loose them that way. You might have the best of both worlds by running 4 bulbs in a series parallel arrangement. two circuits ,each one run through two bulbs to run them all at reduced load. That way if any bulb fails you still have two lit.

you could also have two bulbs in series with one bulb external to your egg hatching and then you might also have a primitive way to adjust the heat output, by swapping to different ratings of bulbs. a light dimmer could work as well.

[Mick_VT]

Ok.. I like them because they do not get hot to the touch..

You can leave them on for hours and they are so cool you can grab them with your hand and hold them for as long as you like..


Now I read CFLs get hotter than incandescent bulbs?

How can this be when if you touch a CFL it’s warm to the touch while a incandescent bulb will burn your hand off instantly..


Try turning a incandescent bulb on for a hour then grab with it one hand and see how long you can hold on to it..

Yeah 400 degrees plus..

Anyhow are CFLs safe to leave on 24/7?

I need to leave a few on AT ALL TIMES.. Is this safe?

yes it is just as safe as a regular bulb - Personally I would go for LEDs though, they last longer and are somewhat better for the environment

[phil]

light bulbs don't usually cause fires if they are in proper fixtures. The LEd's are neat but from what Im seeing still quite expensive.
I have two fluorescent fixtures in the kitchen. I was replacing the bulbs but they are expensive as they are round like donuts. one is larger than the other. I think the ballast failed in one as replacing bulbs didn't get it to come on.. so now I'm shopping for two fixtures that would look OK. the only LED ones I've noticed so far are square and plane and about 100 bucks apiece. I'm sure there are many being made still but I think anything new probably isn't going to look appropriate. I guess the best might be to put LED bulbs in an old fixture and even finding two old fixtures is tricky especially without spending much. The LED ones are still expensive.. I have a secret cash of old rough service rated bulbs so I'm using those but the bulbs manufactured in the past 10 years are so seem horrible for longevity.

[Mick_VT]

I have found LEDs seem to last much longer than CFLs and some are now in the same ballpark in price, they have dropped very quickly in the past year or two